Fundamental shifts are underway in the relationship between San Francisco and Silicon Valley.

Historically, workers have lived in residential suburbs while commuting to work in the city. For Silicon Valley, however, the situation is reversed: many of the largest technology companies are based in suburbs, but look to recruit younger knowledge workers who are more likely to dwell in the city.

…Several Stamen staff live on Google shuttle routes, so we see those shuttles every day. They're ubiquitous in San Francisco, but the scale and shape of the network is invisible.

We decided to try some dedicated observation. We sat 18th & Dolores one morning, and counted shuttles. We counted a new shuttle every five minutes or so; several different companies, high frequency. We also researched online sources like Foursquare to look for shuttle movements, and a 2011 San Francisco city report helped fill in gaps and establish basic routes.

As you can imagine, this map isn't completely accurate. They wanted to imagine what this all would look like if the private shuttles were an actual transit system, so they simplified things a bit. But, at the end of the day, this alt transit network carries 35% of the Caltrain load every day—and the Mission is well represented.

Now, if someone would mash this map with average rents, things could get really interesting.

The buses make this tech boom significantly different from the last one. Workers used to car pool or even rent another apartment down south. Now it’s so easy. Of course, real estate prices, as well as commercial and residential rents are rapidly increasing all along these bus corridors.

This isn’t public transit; it is a corporate buspool. (Think car- or vanpool on steroids.)

During the Cold War, almost all of the aerospace companies in So.Cal had several buspool routes serving them. Some buspools were sponsored by the employers, others were third party companies trying to make a profit on fares, and a few were simply groups of employees chartering a bus for the ride to work. In many cases, buses were driven by aerospace company employees, saving on labor costs.

Now, are the Google, Facebook, etc. shuttles a good idea? Well, they do help with traffic congestion, and probably attract people who would not ordinarily use public transit. (Riding Muni to the Caltrain station, taking Caltrain, then transferring to a local bus or company shuttle from the train station might not appeal to some people.) Bus stop space is at a premium in San Francisco (the So.Cal buspools mainly operated out of parking lots and the like, rather than sharing stops with city buses.)

Should the companies pay Muni to provide this service? They could, but the routes would require that Muni send drivers and buses out of San Francisco for varying periods of time, during which they would not be available to serve riders within San Francisco. Muni’s labor costs are undoubtedly higher than that of the private companies Google, etc. contracts with. Also, federal law strongly discourages public transit companies from providing services that are useful to only a certain class of rider (e.g. employees of a specific company, school children, etc.) and not the general public.

Should these tech companies move to San Francisco, where their employees could use Muni to get to work? That would be a business decision contingent on many factors, such as availability of space (square footage), cost of (most likely) leasing in SF vs. owning the land and building in the suburbs. Can they lease an entire building all to themselves, or will they be spread out over several different buildings? Would SF’s higher tax rates discourage them? Or would SF consider reducing the taxes as an incentive to encourage the companies to move to the City? Many questions to ask…

There is one other issue, however, I would like to bring up. A growing number of large corporations provide all sorts of benefits to their employees. More than just the traditional health and retirement plans, these include child care, on-site gyms, dry cleaning and 24-hour cafeterias. I read a few days ago about a couple, both employed by Google, who never ate at home or in any restaurants, because they ate all of their meals in the Google cafeteria. Sounds convienent, but this means that these people are less likely to spend money at local businesses, or otherwise engage in the greater community. Work becomes everything, and other social contacts–friends, church, community groups, even family, may get squeezed out. A good book along these lines is _Corporate Cults_ by Dr. Dave Arnott.

If we let them use our bus tops for free they should give us something in return. those buses go around almost empty most of the time, wasting, not saving energy. They should allow people going to their offices for an interview to ride them for starters.